Lies And World Travel, vol 1

I'm pretty sure you've come across the following phrase:

"A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes."

And I'm almost as sure that you've heard the phrase attributed to Mark Twain.

Or, even, Winston Churchill.

But neither is true, as the phrase was first uttered in various versions long before it was attributed to either Twain or Churchill:

“A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on.” C. H. Spurgeon, Gems from Spurgeon (1859). An earlier version appears in the Portland (Me.) Gazette, Sept. 5, 1820: “Falsehood will fly from Maine to Georgia, while truth is pulling her boots on.” Still earlier, Jonathan Swift wrote in The Examiner, Nov. 9, 1710: “Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.”

But, regardless its true form and/or it's or its actual originator, there is no question that there is validity in the phrase, perhaps now more than ever.

To wit, the lie that is the Ukranian Biolabs story...

The following was the state of play on March 14th, three weeks into Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine:

Russia’s early struggles to push disinformation and propaganda about Ukraine have picked up momentum in recent days, thanks to a variety of debunked conspiracy theories about biological research labs in Ukraine. Much of the false information is flourishing in Russian social media, far-right online spaces and U.S. conservative media, including Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News...

But how did the lie start and how did it travel around the world almost immediately on February 24th, the day war started?

Stay tuned for volume 2...

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